So, next comes the story of Lucky and how he got to be part of our family:

Small pet store, and lots of noises. Mom was perusing the small mammal supplies and she hears cheering. In a pet store??? Yep!

She goes towards the sound of the cheers and there was a large tank with a huge snake (python maybe) - mom tells us she blocked out the image :( In a corner of the tank there was a reddish piece of meat. It looked like something skinned. She found it disgusting that the few people and emplyees there would cheer for a snake eating but ... people are weird.

So, she turned to leave, but with the corner of her eye she saw the piece of meat blink. Imagine the horror when she realized that whatever it was, it was alive, and when she got closer, she realized it was a piggie :(

She started tapping the glass and trying to make the snake go away; one of the emplyees asked her not to disturb the reptile on display (meaning the snake). She started crying and asking "But what about the guinea pig? Why? And why skin the poor animal?". The guy told her nobody skinned the guinea pig, he was just sick and that is why they were feeding it to the snake.

After a million pleas to the pet store employee, she got to pay for the snake meal - it was not the full price of a guinea pig and it was supposed to go towards the price of frozen feed. Apparently, the employee explained to mom that the snake was used to frozen feed and hesitated to eat the piggie. Mom felt like scratching his face and run out with the piggie. But she had to stay and wait for them to put the piggie in the box and hear them snicker at the weirdo that takes in a sick piggie.

She took the box with the pig and came home crying.

A long few months passed by and this is what she got from a practically bald piggie (overrun by mites):

At the very beginning it was extremely painful for the piggie to be touched and it seemed like forever passed until mom was able to hold him. She named him Lucky for obvious reasons :)

Now, Lucky did not like any of the piggies in the house so he was housed alone in a pet store cage. While Lucky was recovering from his ordeal, Blackie fell sick and ...

Now I get more sweet faces to put with names! (and your family's story is so much better now that I have your face to put to your name) Is it weird that I now hear the story dictated in your beautiful voice ? :)

I have to laugh, I was excited because I remembered there is going to be an update on your furry family today, and then I saw your name pop up as last posted on Cavy Chronicles. :) I'm a little too excited to 'meet' more of the bunch!

I don't know what the boys are doing with their tent at night, but it ends up full of poops and off in some random corner flipped on its side. They are partying in it me thinks~

Well, while Lucky was slowly recovering from "baldness" (he had virtually no hair left and plenty of open sores), Blackie did not fare well :( He was slowing down more and more and would not leave the incision site alone. He ripped open a whole in his belly and one late evening in 2005, he died in mommy's arms. Mom cried the whole night and she seemed to take it very hard. She loved Blackie dearly because he acted like a little puppy: he would follow her around everywhere in the house, if she was doing homework at her desk, he would sleep under her chair, next to her feet.

Plus he was not afraid when the neighbor's cats came to visit our apartment. The rest of us would run for cover, except Blackie who was "studying" the cats. Once, he started rumblestrutting at one of the cats, and the cat ran for the door for dear life. We thought it was hillarious, but stayed hidded :)

At our various visits to the NJ vet (the one not cavy savvy) mom made friends with one of the front desk ladies at the vet's office. Turned out she had guinea pigs as well and was also doing transport and fostering for Have-a-Heart Guinea Pig Rescue.

Mom was like: "There are guinea pig rescues???" Wow!

She met a piggie from that rescue named Julius. He was neutered by that vet and was awaiting for his future family to pick him up. He was going to be a friend for that family's sow. Mom kissed Julius and wished him luck in his future family :)

About a week later, her new friend (the girl working at the vet's office), told her that the piggie was being returned because the sow was beating Julius up :( Mom jumped on the opportunity to see what fostering was. So, Julius came to our home, after mom's friend and her husband met mom to drop him off somewhere in Astoria, Queens. Julius took a subway ride with my mom and there he was, in our home in Brooklyn.

Mom got worried very soon because Julius was eating nothing. Not hay, not pellets, not veggies, nothing. He was just sitting there. He was alert, but not eating. Mom bought him about 5 different kinds of pellets, the junky ones to see if maybe, maybe. The 8-in-1 Ecotrition junk did the trick. He ate some, but not nearly enough. It turned out, after calling the vet, that maybe he had an infection at the neuter site on the inside (the outside looked all right) as that vet did not prescribe medication after the neuter!!!

We put him on Baytril and he started being better.

And this is how mom learned that there are guinea pig rescues in this world and became a foster mom J